Printing using IPX/SPX to a Canon Networked printer
The only way to print using IPX is through a NetWare server or NetWare
emulation.
(you can make some NOS's act as a NetWare server)
Canon officially supports
NetWare 3.x
NetWare 4.x in NDS and Bindery
We have gotten NetWare 5.x to work using IPX as well but I personally
recommend TCP/IP and NDPS
If you want to print on NetWare 5.x using IPX click here
If you want to print on Netware 5.x using TCP/IP click here
How does NetWare Print When Using IPX
Basic concept
When a user prints a document, the print job is sent to a print queue.
The print queue is managed by a print server which checks the queue
periodically for jobs and when it finds one it checks the printer to see
if it is accepting jobs and if the printer is ready, the print server
sends the job off to the printer.
Print server - Can run on the file server (pserver.nlm), a remote
workstation (pserver.exe), or the printer itself. With Canon/EFI
rips the pserver runs on the printer. On some of the Canon non-EFI
machines you can run pserver on the printer or on the file server
(rpinter/nprinter, I'll talk about that farther down this page).
Print queue - a sub directory on a file server where the print jobs
are stored until the printer is ready
Printer - you'll never guess what this is.
Now you have to create these three objects in netware and point them to
the right places. I can help you with this if you like.
Go here and pick which version of NetWare you
are using.
More stuff on IPX
rprinter/nprinter - Remote Printer - These two are basiclly the
same. rprinter runs on NetWare 3.x and nprinter runs on NetWare
4.x. Normally when you run pserver on a file/printer server the
printer is directly connected to that file/printer server. Because
our printers connect directly to the lan we need to run
rprinter/nprinter on the printer to tell the pserver where we are.
I personally recommend running pserver on the printer to free up
resourses on the file server.
Print Queue Names - For EFI RIPS queue names should end with _print,
_hold, or _direct depending on which queue you want to use. If
you do not use any of these it will print to the print queue. If
you have the print queue disabled it will print to the direct
queue. For non-EFI RIPS the queue name is arbitrary.
Frame Types - You should know what IPX frame type you are running
on the LAN when you go to setup the printer itself. From the
system console type config <enter> and look for ETHERNET_802.2 or
ETHERNET_802.3 or maybe even both.